Asturias, 4 October 1934

'In the mountain passes catapults were used to hurl the dynamite at the
enemy. In the cities, the dynamiters crept forward smoking cigars with
which they lit the sticks grasped in their hands'

On 4 October 1934, the coal miners of
Asturias in northern Spain rose in armed
insurrection. Although poorly equipped and
heavily outnumbered, they held off the
Spanish army for nearly two weeks. In the
region's mountains and valleys a
revolutionary commune was established.

The conservative government, elected a
year earlier, had launched an all out assault
on the gains workers had made after the fall
of the monarchy in 1931. It was backed in
this offensive by the far right CEDA, which
by October 1934 was poised to join the
government.

The rise of fascism in other parts of
Europe had made a deep impression on much
of the Spanish left. The CEDA did not hide
its sympathy for the Nazis. and it was widely
expected that this party would try to
introduce an authoritarian regime through
parliament, as Hitler had. But many workers
were determined that the disaster that had
befallen the divided German labour
movement would not be repeated in Spain.
Following the heroic uprising of the
workers of Vienna in February 1934, in a
vain attempt to stop the semi-fascist
Dolfuss entering the government in Austria,
the watchword of Spanish anti-fascists had
become 'Better Vienna than Berlin'.

Nowhere was the radicalisation of the
Spanish workers' movement clearer than in
the ranks of the Socialist Party (PSOE).
Under pressure from its rank and file, its
strategy of reformist gradualism was being
replaced by calls for revolution.

By early 1934, anti-fascist united fronts,
the Workers' Alliances, were being organised
around the country. The Alliances were
often influenced by revolutionary socialists,
but the PSOE leaders had little choice but to
join them. However, the Alliances had
one great weakness--the absence of the
powerful anarcho-syndicalist union, the
CNT.

Only in Asturias were the workers truly
united. The harsh reality of this mining
community had produced a tradition of
cooperation and unity rarely seen elsewhere
in the peninsula. In March 1934, the region's
Socialist and anarchist unions formed a
Workers' Alliance, clearly stating that the
only way to stop fascism was by making the
revolution.

On 4 October, the CEDA entered the
government. The PSOE reluctantly called a
general strike. In Asturias this immediately
developed into an armed insurrection. The
miners had waited months for this day, and
hastily formed militias took over the
villages and quickly laid siege to most of the
province's Civil Guard posts. In the mining
town of Mieres, the Provincial
Revolutionary Committee announced to a
wildly enthusiastic crowd the founding of the
Socialist Republic.

The local Workers' Alliance committees
set about organising every aspect of life
from food distribution and hospitals through
to transport and communications. A
makeshift war industry was rapidly set up
and factories began to turn out armoured
vehicles, weapons and ammunition. The
workers even produced a benzol substitute
for petrol, made from coal. 'Red Guards' were
organised to ensure revolutionary order,
looters were strictly dealt with and well
known right wingers arrested. Women were
heavily involved at all levels, many joining
the men in the militias.

The miners had few arms and relied on
those captured from government forces or
arms factories, but they suffered from a
chronic shortage of ammunition. The
principal weapon throughout the
insurrection was to be dynamite--its adept
use led to the miners inflicting various
humiliating defeats on the army. In the
mountain passes giant catapults were used to
hurl the dynamite at the enemy. In the
cities, the dynamiters crept forward smoking
cigars with which they lit the sticks grasped
in their hands.

Once the mining areas had been secured, a
column of 1,000 militia was despatched to
take the provincial capital of Oviedo. Here,
where the local party and union bureaucracy
was more dominant, the workers had been
slow to rise and it needed the arrival of the
miners to establish revolutionary power in
the city's streets. The government forces
were quickly driven into a few isolated
strongholds.

Meanwhile, troops sent by Madrid to deal
with the rebels met stiff resistance in the
region's southern mountain passes.
Several hundred miners, armed mainly
with dynamite, pinned down one such
government force for 12 days.

Tragically, the Asturian Commune
remained isolated. Unfortunately much of
the Socialist leaders' new found militancy was
only hot air. They had thought they could
frighten the ruling class from going further
down the road to fascism with talk of
revolution. Elsewhere in Spain the general
strike soon collapsed, due to the passivity of
the PSOE leadership and the lack of CNT
support. Only in Catalonia, under
revolutionary socialist influence, did the
strike also begin to take on insurrectionary
proportions, before being undermined by the
half heartedness of the left nationalists and
anarchists.

Such was the optimism of the Asturian
workers that news of the failure of the
movement elsewhere in Spain was dismissed
as government lies. After ten days of
desperate resistance, the 20,000 militia were
gradually pushed back by the enemy forces.
The government soon demonstrated that it
intended to smash the movement at any
cost. Advancing troops used prisoners to
form human shields and aircraft bombed
food queues.

On 18 October, after protracted
negotiations, the revolutionaries
surrendered. Many workers refused to hand
over their arms, either hiding them or
fleeing to the mountains to begin a guerrilla
struggle.

The troops sent to crush the insurrection
were under the command of one General
Franco who brought with him from North
Africa units with a long history in brutally
putting down colonial revolt. As a foretaste
of what Spanish workers would experience at
his hands two years later in the Civil War,
the future dictator unleashed his troops on
the defenceless mining villages leaving a trail
of murder, rape and torture. Over 2,000
workers were killed during the uprising.

However, the miners' heroism was not in
vain. Their rebellion put an end to any 'legal'
attempts to install a fascist regime. The
Spanish working class had learned a valuable
lesson. When, in July 1936, the military
rose up to overthrow the recently elected
left wing government, thousands of workers
poured onto the streets to stop them. Their
battle cry was that of 1934, 'UHP!' (Unite
Proletarian Brothers). The Spanish
revolution had begun.Andy Durgan